The mountain was named in July 1864 by Clarence
King and Richard Cotter of the Whitney Survey
from the summit of Mount Tyndall when they made the
first ascent of Tyndall. 'On setting the level, it was seen at once that there
were two peaks equally high in sight, and two still more elevated, all within a
distance of seven miles. Of the two highest, one rose close by. ... The other,
which we called Mount Whitney, appeared equally inaccessible from any point on
the north or west side. ...' (Whitney, Geology, 386.)

'Whitney had forbidden his subordinates to name for him the mountain which is
now called after the Rev. Lorentine Hamilton [just east of San Jose]. This time,
in their chief's absence, they stood upon their rights of discovery, and called
their great peak, Mt. Whitney.' (Brewster, 238.)

'For years our chief, Professor Whitney, has made brave campaigns into the
unknown realm of Nature. Against low prejudice and dull indifference he has led
the survey of California onward to success. There stand for him two monuments,
-- one a great report made by his own hand; another the loftiest peak in the
Union, begun for him in the planet's youth and sculptured of enduring granite by
the slow hand of Time.' (King, 280-81.)

In 1871 King climbed what he thought was Mount Whitney, but he was actually on
Mount Langley -- then known as 'Sheep Mountain,' a name
applied by King himself in 1864. The real first ascent of Whitney was made on
August 18, 1873, by John Lucas, Charles D. Begole, and Albert H. Johnson, all of
Lone Pine, who made the climb from a summer camp
on the Kern River. 'Charley Begole, Johnny Lucas and Al Johnson took a trip
to the summit of the highest mountain in the range, and christened it
"Fisherman's Peak." Some people are now trying to take the credit of their being
the first there away from them, but they won't succeed. Prof. Whtney's agent has
just returned from the mountain, and finds fault with the people here for their
lack of romance in calling it "Fisherman's Peak." Ain't it as romantic as
"Whitney?" The fishermen who found it looked mighty romantic on their return to
Soda Springs. Wonder who that old earthquake sharp thinks is running this country,
anyhow?' (Inyo Independent, September 20, 1873.) For a detailed account
of the name controversy and of early ascents of the mountain, see
Francis P. Farquhar, 'The Story of Mount
Whitney,' SCB 14, no. 1, Feb. 1929: 39-52.)

The name 'Whitney Creek' was at first applied to what is now named 'Golden Trout
Creek,' because the creek arose near Mt. Langley, which had been thought to be
Mt. Whitney. Those who discovered the error tried -- in 1881 -- to correct it.
'The third day we camped on Whitney Creek, upon which we tried unsuccessfully to
impress the named "Volcano Creek," as that stream does not rise in the vicinity
of Mt. Whitney.' But later on, the same party applied the name to the correct
stream, where it is today. 'We were at an altitude of about 11,500 feet, in a little
meadow, through which flows the clear, cold water of a creek heading at the foot
of the mountain. This is the stream which we thought should have been named Whitney
Creek.' (W. B. Wallace in MWCJ 1, no. 1, May 1902: 2-3.)

When Joseph N. LeConte passed through Big Whitney Meadow
in 1890 he referred to it as 'Whitney Creek Meadows.' It became simply 'Whitney
Meadow' on the 1907 Olancha 30' sheet; the word
'Big' was added with publication of the 1956 Kern Peak
15' map. Little Whitney Meadow was called 'Long Meadow' on early editions of the
Olancha 30' sheet; it was changed to its present name in 1938 by a BGN
decision because the name was in common use.

'Whitney Pass' was the route of the first trail built to the summit of Mt. Whitney
from Owens Valley, in 1904, and probably was named at that
time.

The original name of Whitney Portal was 'Hunter Flat' or 'Hunter's Camp,' given many
years ago for William L. Hunter, an early pioneer of Owens Valley and one of the two
men who made the first ascent of Mt. Williamson, in
1884. The name 'Whitney Portal' was applied at the official opening of the new
automobile road to the flat in June 1936. (USGS.) For a biographical sketch and
portrait of Hunter (1842-1902), see Saga of Inyo County, 163-64."
- Peter Browning, Place Names of the Sierra Nevada

In July 1864 Whitney's four chief assistants -- William
Brewer, Charles Hoffmann,
James Gardiner, and Clarence King -- beheld from Mount
Brewer what they rightly assumed to be the culminating
peak of the Sierra Nevada. On this occasion they stood upon their privilege as
discoverers and named it in honor of their chief. In 1871 Clarence King climbed
the peak now known as Mount Langley, a few miles south
supposing it to be Mount Whitney. His error was discovered by others two years
later. He hastened to the scene; but before he could get there, three fishermen --
John Lucas, Clarles D. Begole, and A. H. Johnson, all of Inyo Co. -- made the
first ascent on Aug. 18, 1873. There was an attempt to name the peak Fisherman's
Peak in their honor; but the name Mount Whitney was firmly established by 1881,
when the summit was occupied by Prof. S. P. Langley for observations on solar
heat."
- Erwin Gudde, California Place Names

"To the Paiute Indians of the Owens Valley, Mount Whitney
was known as Too-man-go-yah, roughly translated as 'very old man.' The
Indians believed that the spirit responsible for the destiny of their people
lived inside the mountain, and from his high perch he observed the Indians and noted
their behavior.

To Clarence King of the California Geological Survey, the first ascent of
Too-man-go-yah, would represent the ultimate mountaineering achievement.

There are very few peaks in North America whose first ascent has been the subject
of more literature, publicity, disagreement, and controversy than Mount Whitney.

On July 27, 1873, W. A. Goodyear, a civil engineer, climbed Mount Langley with M. W.
Belshaw, and discovered the silver half-dollar on which King's and Pinson's names
were etched. Goodyear and Belshaw took observations and discovered the real Mount
Whitney to be 300 to 400 feet taller and to the northwest of the mountain on which
they stood. It was obvious that Clarence King had mistaken Mount Langley for Mount
Whitney and that he had mistaken the true Mount Whitney for Mount Tyndall. Goodyear,
whose academic training was nearly identical to King's and who had a dislike for
King's showmanship and tendency toward hyperbole, especially when it came to
climbing descriptions, saw an opportunity to slam King's reputation. An employee
of the State Geological Survey, Goodyear immediately reported King's mistake
to the California Academy of Sciences on August 4, 1873.

From Goodyear's report, Clarence King learned of his second, but most important
mountaineering mistake. His first mistake was climbing Tyndall thinking it was
Whitney, but this was never published. He had published his ascent of Mount
Langley as a first ascent of Mount Whitney. At the news of Goodyear's report,
King quickly headed for the Pacific coast to correct the situation. King, who was
now seen as a prodigious blunderer, was given many sharp pokes by residents of
the southern Sierra, and especially by the local newspaper editors.

Unfortunately for King, the locals of Inyo County, having already read the Goodyear
report, were making attempts of their own upon the summit of Whitney. Charles
Begole, Albert Johnson, and John Lucas, or the 'Fishermen,' as they called
themselves, had left Lone Pine in order to escape the intense summer heat of the
Owens Valley. They had planned nothing more than two weeks of fishing, drinking,
and enjoying the cool air of the high country. As the Inyo Independent
reported on September 13, 1873: 'On the 17th of August, these gentlemen were on the
summit of Mount Whitney [really Mount Langley]. The other peak was evidently the
highest, and they resolved to go to its top. The next day they started passing over
two deep canyons, spending the entire day in labor, they finally succeeded in
reaching its highest point, and have the honor of being first to stand on the
greatest elevation in the United States.'

As with most mountaineering achievements, it didn't take long for the critics to
be heard. In the September 20 edition of the Independent, a letter to the
editor read:

'Abe Leyda, William Crapo, W. L. Hunter, and myself are the only persons that ever
were on the summit of the present Mount Whitney. Mr. [Charles] Rabe took the altitude
and found it to be over 15,000 feet, several hundred feet higher than Clarence
King's Mount Whitney.
Yours, T. McDonough.'

Unfortunately for McDonough, Clarles Rabe later admitted in a report published in
the Independent on October 11, 1873, to carving his name on a half-dollar
and leaving it 'among the rocks of the monument.'

That Rabe had suggested a monument was soon pointed out by the Fishermen. Lucas,
Johnson, and Begole claimed to have erected the monument on August 18, then added
in the Inyo Independent on October 20, 1873, that 'Had any white man ever
been upon the spot, we would have discovered some marks or tracks, but we
examined the locality throughout and found nothing.'

On November 1, 1873, William Crapo claimed that he had climbed the mountain once
before, on August 15. He tried to prove this by a written report of his ascent
being present in San Francisco ten days before the Fishermen made their climb.
Unfortunately for William Crapo, no records of his alledged August 15 ascent were
ever found in San Francisco or anywhere else.

Twenty years later, William Crapo's character again appeared in a news item, but
this time under less favorable circumstances. On January 5, 1893, the Inyo
Register reports that Crapo had been charged with murdering the postmaster at
Cerro Gordo. Apparently the murder was the result of a minor election dispute.

While the claims and counterclaims of liar and scoundrel were being printed into
the history of Inyo County, one of California's most influential conservationists
was quietly exploring the Whitney area, observing the wilderness, and climb the high
peaks.

It was October 21 when John Muir ascended the disputed
Fishermen's Peak. He climbed by a new route on the northeast side of the
mountain, and he climbed alone. The climb Muir made, up the now well-traveled
Mountaineers Route, was significant because it showed future climbers that the
east side of Whitney was not impossible, and that climbing could take place there.

The first ascent of Mount Whitney by a woman was accomplished by the ebullient Mrs.
Anna Mills on the third day of August 1878. In an
article in the Mount Whitney Club Journal in 1902, she wrote:

'I can candidly say that I have never seen, nor do I expect to see, a picture so
varied, so sublime, so awe-inspiring, as that seen from the summit of Mount
Whitney on the third day of August 1878.'

The debate as to the best name for the newly discovered high peak was fought
almost as fiercely as the battle for who the first ascensionists were. Names
such as Dome of Inyo, Fowler's Peak (after Senator Fowler), and Fishermen's Peak
were proposed and fought for. Finally, from arguments made by William Brewer,
who had been Clarence King's supervisor, the name Mount Whitney was established.

During the last two decades of the nineteenth century, a second wave of curious
individuals began to seek Whitney's high point. This group was not interested in
the hoopla surrounding climbs made on the mountain, but, more importantly,
how the peak could aid the advancement of science.

In 1880, Samuel Pierpont Langley, the director of the Allegheny Observatory in
Pittsburg, Professor W. C. Day
of Johns Hopkins University, and J. E. Keeler
and Captain Michaelis of the U. S. Signal Service led an expedition to the summit
of Whitney. Langley had received advice from Clarence King in choosing a site
for his solar heat experiments. King, who was at that time directing the Survey
West of the One Hundredth Meridian, suggested the summit of Whitney. Information
from Langley's bolometer observations concluded that the solar constant was about
three calories, while Professor Day determined that the carbonic acid content of the
atmosphere was greater at low altitude than at high altitude. The two prominent
spires to the south of Whitney were later named after J. E. Keeler and W. C.
Day, respectively.

In the early 1900s, one man independently realized Mount Whitney's importance to the
world, and he undertook steps to make the mountain more accessible.

Gustafe F. Marsh was an English miner who had emigrated to the United States in
1889 at the age of twenty. He had worked as a miner in Colorado and California, and
was a devoted follower of Izaak Walton. He was also
an avid fisherman and visited the Lone Pine area during several fishing trips around
the Owens Valley. The Whitney Trail was constructed by Gustafe F. Marsh and the
soldiers of the Mount Whitney Military Reservation, and was primarily financed
by the people of Owens Valley. The first trail was completed on the evening of
July 18, 1904. By the end of spring 1905, the Whitney Trail was already in a state
of disrepair and needed attention. The town of Lone Pine raised more money and again,
Marsh supervised the repairs to the trail.

Over the next twenty-two years, scientific research conducted on the summit of
Mount Whitney determined that Mars has no water in its atmosphere and that cosmic
rays strike the earth everywhere with equal intensity regardless of topography.
It was during this time of research that a summit shelter was built. Financed by a
considerable donation from the Smithsonian Instituion's Hodgkin's Fund and a grant
from William H. Crocker, in less than thirty days G. F. Marsh built the observatory
for the scientific teams stationed on the summit.

By 1926, Mount Whitney was becoming such a popular destination for tourists of
all kinds that a plan was hatched to build a tramway to the summit. Apparently this
tramway was to offer the nonathletic thrill seeker the same opportunities that his
or her mountaineering brethren were already enjoying. An article describing the
construction of the tramway was printed in Popular Mechanics. The proposed
project was compared to the tram in Chamonix Valley, France, which goes to the top
of the Aiguille du Midi. Sixty-three supporting towers, from 40 to 90 feet,
along with cables and pylons, were described. Power was to be furnished by one of
the Los Angeles power stations. Fortunately, this idea never came to fruition.

The next great would-be engineering feat to be proposed for the mountain occurred
in 1951 when a group of Southern California television experts explored the
summit as a possible site for a television antenna. Fortunately, the distance of the
mountain from populated areas made it of little value to the television industry.

The first winter ascent of Mount Whitney was accomplished solo, shortly after the
first winter ascent of Mount Langley, on January 10, 1929, by Orlando Bartholomew.
Bart, as he was known, skied to the base of the western chutes on Whitney, and then
replaced skis with ice creepers, which were simple, inexpensive crampons. Bart climbed
up into the chutes, his skis dragging by a rope tied around his waist while he
struggled in the ice and snow. Climbing the chute, Bart ran into an insurmountable
headwall. Rather than retreat, he carefully crossed from one gully to another,
avoiding steep dead-ends in the icy gullies. After escaping several dead-ending
chutes, Bart had to admit that he was lost. He glanced up at yet another headwall
and decided to exit the gully to the south, toward Mount Muir. He had reattached his
skis, but when he climbed up a dangerous gully, knocking loose a small avalanche
that fell for hundreds of feet, the ice creepers went back on. Bart realized he'd
need his skis as climbing aids. Poking the back ends of the skis into the hardened
snow, Bart used them much like a ladder rung, gaining a foot or two every time he
planted the skis. Finally, as Bart surmounted the 13,000-foot level, the snow thinned
and there was nothing but rock and ice.

Eventually, at the 13,600-foot level, Bart stumbled upon the Whitney Trail, the
main route from Ibex Park (now called Whitney Portal). Bart now scrambled along the
crest of the divide, eager to reach the summit quickly so that he might have plenty
of time for the descent. In his diary, published in High Odyssey by Eugene
Rose in 1974, he wrote:

'Though the scramble northward along the crest of the ridge required sustained
effort, there was still much treacherous country to cross. The footing might be at
one moment a narrow ledge of ice-covered granite, the next a wind-glazed drift.
Impatient as I was to reach the summit, it seemed all obstacles known to
mountaineers had been amassed to thwart progress. By the time Whitney's broad
shoulder had been reached, the sun was alarmingly low.'

Two weeks at high altitude had given Bart great acclimatization, and with his skis
flung across one shoulder, he moved quickly up the southern flank of the mountain.
Within an hour he was standing upon the summit.

The first ascent of the east face of Mount Whitney was attempted only nineteen
months later. Four experienced mountaineers, Jules Eichorn, Glen Dawson, Robert
L. M. Underhill, and Norman Clyde, brought together
by Francis Farquhar, made the attempt. The attempt was successful and this intrepid
ascent is decribed in this chapter's East Face Route (route 10) [buy the book if
you want the details].

Although the climb had not been particularly difficult, the ascent of Whitney's
east face was significant for two major reasons. One, the climb heralded a new
standard of technical competence in California rock climbing, and two, it turned
the California climbing community's attention toward more challenging routes
on the big established peaks.

As Glen Dawson wrote in the 1932 Sierra Club Bulletin: 'More and more we
are becoming interested in new routes and traverses rather than ascents of peaks
by easy routes.'

The eastern escarpment that radiates to the north and more prominently to the
south of Mount Whitney is perhaps one of the largest continous walls in the Sierra
Nevada. This wall is divided by Pinnacle Ridge, which runs dirctly west from
Third Needle. To the south of Third Needle or Pinnacle Ridge, there are numerous
aretes and walls that rise as smaller versions of Keeler Needle and Crooks Peak.
Many of these aiguilles, as they have been designated, present solid grade 3 and
4 routes.

John Mendenhall was already well known for his strength and endurance in the
mountains. In his 1930 first ascent of the northeast gully on
Laurel Mountain, Mendenhall is credited as being the first
American to make conscious use of a belay. Later, Medenhall would become known for
keeping pace with difficult free climbing during the fifties as well as his
contributions to mountaineering. During the thirties and forties, Mendenhall became
the single most prolific climber of the Mount Whitney area. Between 1939 and '48,
he explored the eastern escarpment by climbing four new routes on the eastern
faces of Third Needle, Mount Muir, and Mount Whitney."
- Stephen F. Porcella & Cameron M. Burns, Climbing California's Fourteeners

"When the legislature of California established a Geological Survey, most of those
who voted for it undoubtedly thought they were setting up an agency that would
point out with scientific accuracy just where gold was to be found; nothing
thereafter would be left to chance and everyone would quickly become rich.
That was not the intention of the Act, however, and nothing in its wording gave
any such implication. It was definitely scientific, not utilitarian in purpose,
as expressed in its opening section: "to make an accurate and complete Geological
Survey of the State, and to furnish maps and diagrams thereof, with a full and
scientific description of the rocks, fossils, soils, and minerals, and of its
botanical and zoological productions, together with specimens of the same." If
this led to a knowledge of the mineral resources of the state, so much the better,
but an understanding of the entire resources must come first. To achieve
the desired results the sponsors of the Survey knew that experienced, scientific
direction was required, and this meant the elimination of patronage and politics.
The extraordinary thing about the Act is that it did just this, by naming the
Director in the Act itself and giving him authority to appoint his assistants.
The Act, approved on April 21, 1860, states at the very beginning, "J. D. Whitney
is hereby appointed State Geologist."

How did this come about? Someone with high ideals and unusual influence must
have been behind it. Such a one was Stephen J. Field, a former member of the
state legislature and in 1860 Chief Justice of the State Supreme Court, later
a Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court. His motives were beyond suspicion, even
when he insisted in putting Whitney's name in the Act. He had long known the
Whitney family and had confidence in the integrity as well as in the scientific
qualifications of J. D. Whitney. Others played a part in devising the Survey --
John Conness, afterwards United States Senator, steered
the bill through the legislature -- but it was Field's prestige and influence
that secured its passage.

Josiah Dwight Whitney, a native of Massachusetts and a graduate of Yale, was
forty-one years of age at the time. He had received some European education
and had been engaged in geological surveys in New Hampshire and in Iowa and
Wisconsin, and already enjoyed a high reputation among men of science. He was
well aware of the importance of securing competent men to assist him in carrying
out his new task. His first selection was an especially fortunate one: William
Brewer, thirty-two, a native of New York State, had graduated from the
Scientific School at Yale, and he, too, had studied in Europe. For four years
he was Whitney's right-hand man and leader of the field parties. His letters,
composed on the spot from his pocket notebooks, furnish a day-by-day account
of the experiences of the Survey and give a vivid picture of California in the
years 1860-1864. Whitney's second appointment was William Ashburner, whose
European education in mining proved useful in the mineral aspects of the
Survey. He became one of the original group to be appointed Commissioners to
Manage the Yosemite Valley and Mariposa Big Tree Grove. A later appointment,
which was to carry forward the influence of the Whitney Survey for many years,
was that of Charles F. Hoffmann, a young German engineer with a talent for
mapmaking.
- Francis P. Farquhar, History of the Sierra Nevada

The Whitney party spent the first three years traveling the Coast Range from
Los Angeles to as far north as Mt. Shasta. Much of the work was done in and
around the San Francisco Bay region, the most populated part of the state at
the time. In 1863 and 1864 they turned their attention to the Sierras. Part of the
first year was spent exploring Yosemite up through Tuolumne Meadows, down to
Mono Lake, over Sonora and Carson Passes, and into the Lake Tahoe region,
before returning down the American River to Sacramento and San Francisco.

1864 found the party in the Sierras again, this time exploring portions of
the High Country. They traveled to the Grant Grove of giant sequoias, to the Kings
River, over Kearsarge Pass, back over Mono Pass (the southern one, out of Little
Lakes Valley), down the
San Joaquin, and another trip through Yosemite.

"The work of the Survey was by no means completed, but the ambitious program of the
early days could not be carried out. Funds were provided by the legislature only
intermittently. Whitney wrote to his brother in February, 1866, "It is terribly
up-hill work to drag this concern which I have been pulling at for five years, up
the hill of difficulty. It is hard enough work to do to carry on the Survey even if
it were appreciated and no obstacles were placed in my way. While I could not help
being secretly gratified, or at least relieved, if the Survey were stopped, yet my
scientific instincts make me fight for its continuance." For a few more years money
was provided and the work went ahead, but with a changing personnel. Brewer went
East to become Professor of Agriculture at Yale; King and Gardner did a little
more work for the Survey, then engaged in other surveys in the West; Cotter, after
another summer with King, went to Alaska before settling permanently in Montana;
Hoffmann recovered and produced a series of maps that set a new standard and
influenced cartography in America for years to come. Whitney continued to be the
titular head of the California Geological Survey and supervised its publications,
the final ones printed at his own expense. The final field work of the Survey was
conducted under Hoffmann and W. A. Goodyear and involved an ascent, in 1870, of
Tower Peak, north of Yosemite, as well as the hot contest over the ascent of Mount
Whitney [where King failed for a second time to climb the correct summit]. The
breach between Professor Whitney and the California legislature, coupled with the
antagonism of Governor Newton Booth, brought the Survey to an end in 1874."
- Francis P. Farquhar, History of the Sierra Nevada